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Netflix’s Korean drama series, ‘Squid Game,’ delivers a thrilling second season that raises the stakes tenfold compared to the events of the first season. It picks up where the first season left off, with Seong Gi-hun vowing to find the people behind the games and make them pay for what they have done to innocent people, all to entertain a group of rich people who assign no value to human life. The second season takes a time jump of two years, where we see Gi-hun so dedicated to the task that he has built his whole life around it. The first step is to find the Recruiter, which leads him to a spiral that ends in more bloodshed than he’d wanted.

Around the same time, unbeknownst to Gi-hun, police officer Hwang Jun-ho was busy trying to find the island where the games take place. The last time he was there, he saw his brother, In-ho, who is revealed to have been the Front Man, running the entire operation. Things are put on a fast track when Gi-hun and Jun-ho join forces, but even then, they have too many problems they need to deal with. In the final episode, their desire to fight is put to the test as, one after another, a shocking turn of events threatens to unravel everything. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Why Does Captain Park Kill the Soldier? Why Does He Betray Jun-ho?

No character in ‘Squid Game’ is without a purpose, and it becomes clear in the finale of Season 2, where we discover that a seemingly minor character has been playing his own game so far. Captain Park is introduced at the beginning of the second season. He owns a boat and happens to be the guy who found Jun-ho after he was shot down by his brother, In-ho, in the Season 1 finale. The Captain claims that he found Jun-ho floating in the water and that it was so far away from any island that it was difficult for him to figure out which island Jun-ho had come from. In any case, he saved the police officer’s life, and they even became friends. The Captain and Jun-ho became so attached that when Jun-ho decided to go back into the sea and look for the island, he entrusted the Captain with the task. He didn’t even let his superiors know that he was still looking into the games.

At first, the Captain presents himself as someone who doesn’t believe in Jun-ho’s stories about the illegal games where people play for a huge amount of money while risking their lives. While he takes Jun-ho into the ocean, he doesn’t think that there really is such an island, and he only indulges the young man’s theories because he likes him. For two years, the duo goes out into the ocean, but they always return empty-handed. The reason for this is revealed at the end of Season 2, where we discover that the Captain has been actively sabotaging Jun-ho’s search. This is revealed when one of the men from the cop’s team finds him fiddling with the drone they use for casing different islands. When the man confronts him about it, the Captain kills him and throws him overboard.

The revelation about the Captain is interesting but not entirely unexpected. The character begins as an innocuous person, but slowly, his demeanor shows the signs that he knows more than he lets on. Moreover, when Jun-ho’s team faces an ambush on one of the islands, he figures that someone is rating them out to the organizers of the games. He thinks it might be because of some lapse in the security of their communication channels, but he doesn’t stop to question the loyalty of the men around him, especially the Captain, mainly because he owes the man his life.
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The truth regarding the Captain’s loyalty puts several things in perspective, including why Jun-ho wasn’t able to find the island after two years of continuously searching for it. First of all, the Captain finding Jun-ho in the ocean at the end of Season 1 wasn’t random at all. Jun-ho was shot by his brother, In-ho, who purposely shot him in a place that might look fatal but isn’t. This shows that In-ho doesn’t want his brother to die. So, when Jun-ho falls from the cliff and into the ocean, it makes sense that In-ho would send someone to look for him and make sure he survives. This is where the Captain comes in.

In-ho knows that having come so close to him, his younger brother will become even more adamant about finding him again. He cannot stop Jun-ho from continuing the search, so he puts the Captain on the task of monitoring his actions so that Jun-ho always remains far from finding the island and the games, and hence, comes nowhere near any trouble. This works for two whole years until Jun-ho finds Seong Gi-hun, and his search takes a completely different direction. Even then, the Captain is involved in the plan, which gives him a lot of agency to meddle with the search. He actively sabotages their efforts, but despite having been discreet all this while, he slips up when one of Jun-ho’s men finds him with the drone. Still, things are in the Captain’s control, and they will remain so until Jun-ho becomes aware of his treachery. So far, the betrayer has covered his tracks well enough not to invite any trouble.

Why Does Gi-hun Choose Not to Intervene in the Fight Between Xs and Os?

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The entire reason why Gi-hun decides to go back into the game is because he wants to get to the root of the problem. He wants to find the Front Man and, through him, the rich people who are behind the creation of the inhumane games. He tries his best to get the people out of the game by relying on the votes, but in the end, he is forced to make a difficult decision when the opportunity presents itself. When the last vote ends in a tie, Gi-hun realizes that the time for violence is nigh. It becomes even more evident when he discovers that the players have been given forks with their food, which makes for a very efficient weapon in a fight. Sure enough, a fight breaks out in the men’s toilet, and several people die there. This serves as the prelude for something that Gi-hun had been dreading since Day 1. Now that the Os don’t have as many votes left, they will try to kill the Xs to get the next vote in their favor. Everyone knows that, and some Xs want to prepare for it, but Gi-hun has other plans.

From his previous experience, Gi-hun knows that when such a fight breaks out, the organizers let it take their course, and only after a lot of bloodshed has happened do they send the cavalry to control the situation. This is the only opportunity that he and his group will have to overpower the guards, get their weapons, and find their way to the management section, where they are sure to find the Front Man. For this, Gi-hun and his team need to survive the fight between the Os and the Xs, but instead of helping their side, they must make the difficult decision to hide and do nothing. If they don’t survive the fight, they won’t be able to attack the guards and stage a rebellion, and everything so far will have gone to waste. So, even as the innocents are butchered in front of him, he has to make the hard choice of staying put because the real thing starts when the guards come in.

Why Doesn’t Dae-ho Get the Ammo?

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It is one thing to think about rebelling and entirely another to actually do it. Because Gi-hun has already been through the travesty of the games and has been waiting for this moment for a long time, he doesn’t have to think twice before putting his life on the line and making the bold decision to attack the guards and the people behind the scenes. For a lot of other people, even those who support Gi-hun, it is not an easy decision to take up arms and significantly worsen their odds when they could take their chances with the next vote or the next game. So, when asked to hide and not participate in the bloodbath between the Os and the Xs, a lot of people take his advice, but when the time comes to follow him into battle, several people choose to stay behind. Considering how things go, perhaps Dae-ho should have been one of those people.

The young man is introduced right after the first game, where he joins Gi-hun’s group, especially after discovering that he is an ex-winner. Dae-ho also reveals that he is a Marine, which wins him a lot of brownie points with Jung-bae, who also served in the military. Considering his past, one would imagine that Dae-ho would do well in the rebellion. However, when landing in the heat of the action, Dae-ho’s inexperience with war comes to light. It turns out that either he exaggerated his time in the Marines, or he did serve but never got to see any action or received any proper training to prepare him for all this. This stands in stark contrast to Hyun-ju, who was in the special forces and didn’t hesitate to take command of the rebellion.

Considering that they were only a handful, to begin with, no one expected the rebellion to go well. Gi-hun was driven by his desire for revenge, which is why he didn’t think things through. As expected, things go south pretty easily, especially considering that the Front Man had been in on the whole thing since the beginning. He’d left his mask and joined the participants to get close to Gi-hun and find out what he was planning to do. He had always been a step ahead, and Gi-hun didn’t factor in this point when deciding to launch an all-out war against the organizers of the game.

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A major hitch in the plan comes when the rebels run out of ammo. They had taken over the guns from the soldiers who were sent to break up the fight between the players, but no one thought twice about the possibility of running out of ammunition and being basically stranded in the middle of the fight. To his credit, Gi-hun figures out that the guards have extra ammo in their pockets, and he relays this information to the rest of the group. Dae-ho offers to go back to the main hall and get the ammo from the pockets of the dead soldiers. Even then, it sticks out as a bad decision to let him have this responsibility. During the fight, he completely loses his nerves and wastes his ammo by shooting blindly; even the civilians fighting alongside him know better than that. He gets so scared that when the part about getting ammo is broached, he sees it as a chance to get away from all the bullets flying around and to safety.

It’s not that Dae-ho never intended to come back with the ammo. He just wanted a break and thought that he wasn’t being very helpful on the frontline, so perhaps he should do this to help the team. His nervousness is apparent the entire way, even as he makes his way back through the section where there aren’t any soldiers anymore. He gathers all the ammo with the help of other players, but when the time comes to go back, he is stopped in his tracks by the sound of the bullets, which signal nothing but death to him. He is so paralyzed by fear that he completely forgets about the people who are relying on him, waiting for him to arrive with the ammo that would give them a better fighting chance. Instead, Dae-ho resigns himself to cowardice and hides away while the rest of the players watch him in confusion.

Does Hyun-ju Attack the Soldiers?

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When Dae-ho doesn’t return with the ammo, the others start to wonder what has been keeping him. Hyun-ju decides to find him, believing that he may have been caught by the guards. But when she comes back to the main hall, she finds him cowering in a corner. She is shocked by his behavior, though not entirely surprised. In any case, she knows that her team needs the ammo, and she decides to take it all back herself. But by that time, the winds turn against the rebels and the masked men take over. Even before she can leave the main hall, the guards come back, this time in a greater number. However, this doesn’t dampen the fight in her, and she prepares to shoot at the guards, especially now that she has so much ammo at her disposal.

No matter what, the fight wouldn’t have ended in Hyun-ju’s favor. She still remained outnumbered, and the guards would’ve overpowered and killed her easily. Moreover, several other people would also have lost their lives, even though they weren’t even part of the fight. All in all, it would be an entirely useless endeavor to keep fighting when it was clear that the rebels had lost the fight. However, Hyun-ju doesn’t consider the ends. She cannot stop fighting, and it is perhaps the soldier inside of her. However, this is not a normal battlefield, and she is forced to see this reality when Geum-ja points it out to her. The old woman, despite the odds stacked against her, had managed to survive so far in the game. While her old age may have seemed to be a drawback, her experience in life becomes the asset that turns the tide in her favor. She knows that the best way to survive is to stay out of the conflict as much as possible.

This is why, when the time comes, she makes her son stay back and not join Gi-hun’s rebellious plan. She knows that it will end in vain, even though she hopes that it doesn’t. In the end, when she watches Hyun-ju load her gun to attack the guards, she tells the young woman not to go ahead with it. She says that it’s not a good way to die, which shows Hyun-ju that the only possible outcome of the fight would be her death, and it would not serve any purpose. The best thing she can do now is to survive and take her chances with the next game, like every other survivor. She fought for the rebellion, and that’s commendable, but she must learn to back down from a fight when it’s clear that she is going to lose. So, she lays down her weapon and accepts defeat to survive and see another day.

Is Jung-bae Dead? Why Doesn’t Front Man Kill Gi-hun?

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A lot of things go wrong with Gi-hun’s rebellion at the same time. To begin with, he has no idea that the Front Man he is looking for has been right in front of him all this while. Secondly, he doesn’t factor in the part about running out of ammo and the cold feet that people in his team may suffer from. This, and a lot of mismanagement, costs him the rebellion, and it all ends as quickly as it began. In-ho seizes the moment and kills the rebels, fakes his own death, and then goes back into his get-up of the Front Man to confront Gi-hun, who is trying to hold the front with his best friend, Jung-bae. By this time, their ammo has run out, and the duo is forced to surrender. The same thing happens with the rest of the team, where Dae-ho and Hyun-ju are the only ones who survive, while the rest are killed.

When Gi-hun and Jung-bae surrender, they believe they will be spared and sent back to the main hall to continue the game, but this isn’t the point of allowing the rebellion to go so far. In-ho took the cover being one of the players for several reasons. The first one was to understand Gi-hun and why he chose to come back when he had all the money in the world and could have spent the rest of his life in comfort, never having to think about the games again. He also wants to know what exactly Gi-hun has in mind, what things he may have put in motion outside of the In-ho’s knowledge, though from the looks of it, it seems that nothing as escaped the Front Man’s knowledge. It was his job to thwart whatever stunt Gi-hun was bound to pull, but more than that, it was to show the ex-winner of the games that he remains just as insignificant as he was when he first came to the games. His status as a winner doesn’t give him any special privilege, and he will have to face the consequences of his actions.
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To teach Gi-hun a lesson he will never forget, the Front Man decides to spare him while killing his best friend, Jung-bae. In-ho knows that the reason Gi-hun came back is because he is haunted by the deaths of all the people who played alongside him the first time around. Thus, having the blood of another innocent, who also happens to be one of his closest friends, is the most effective way to show Gi-hun that he cannot win this fight. The powers he is fighting against are too strong. All his theatrics will do is cost the lives of the people he loves, nothing more. The death of Jung-bae is supposed to break Gi-hun’s resolve once and for all so that he can stop his search, which has been going on for the past two years. Of course, what the Front Man doesn’t realize is that losing his friend will only fuel Gi-hun’s fire, and he will not rest until he has torn the whole thing to the ground.